Date: 1273

"We may therefore say that the soul understands, as the eye sees; but it is more correct to say that man understands through the soul."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"For that whereby primarily anything acts is a form of the thing to which the act is to be attributed: for instance, that whereby a body is primarily healed is health, and that whereby the soul knows primarily is knowledge; hence health is a form of the body, and knowledge is a form of the soul."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"It is separate indeed according to its intellectual power, because the intellectual power does not belong to a corporeal organ, as the power of seeing is the act of the eye; for understanding is an act which cannot be performed by a corporeal organ, like the act of seeing."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1273

"Further, the Philosopher says (De Anima. ii, 1) that the relation of a part of the soul to a part of the body, such as the sight to the pupil of the eye, is the same as the relation of the soul to the whole body of an animal."

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Date: 1389

"The soule ... muste suffre for the bonde of the body that he is joyned to."

— Trevisa, John (b. c. 1342, d. in or before 1402); Bartholomeus (1203-1272)

Date: c. 1440-1450

"Vnderstondying is þe sy3t in þe ey3e of soule, desire is þe ere & þe herying of the soule, dely3t is þe mowth & þe swelwying of þi soule, Mynde is þe nase & þe smellyng of þi soule; wyll & consent is þe felyng of þi soule."

— Anonymous

Date: 1464

"For Simple Being, which is visible to the mind alone, is to the mind as the being of color is to the sense of sight."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

" [I]f someone were to turn his mind's sight to the possibility, or power, of oneness: he surely would see in every number and in all plurality only oneness's power"

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1464

"Therefore, my dearly beloved Peter, with keen directedness turn your mind's eye to this secret, and with this analysis enter into my writings and into whatever other writings you read, and occupy yourself especially with my books and sermons."

— Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Date: 1561

A soul purged and "occupied in spirituall ... understanding" may "come to beholde the beautie that is seene with the eyes of the minde"

— Castiglione, Baldassare (1478-1529); Hoby, Sir Thomas (1530-1566), Trans.